The intense competition between iOS and Android means any statistics that seem to shed light on the two platforms' respective performances are quickly seized on by journalists and bloggers, especially if they lend themselves to claims about who's "winning" in the smartphone and tablet wars.

The truth is that both Apple and Google are winning if judged on momentum, with BlackBerry sliding – admittedly from a high market-share starting point – and Microsoft still awaiting a sales surge from its new Mango software and the first Windows Phone handsets from Nokia.

Even so, analyst firm ABI Research's latest report fuels the debate around iOS versus Android, claiming that Google's platform overtook Apple's for mobile app downloads in the third quarter of this year. The company estimates that Android accounted for 44% of overall downloads, while iOS took a 31% share.

The company has hailed Google's strategy of making Android free for manufacturers to use (well, free as long as you don't count the patent-related payments a number of manufacturers are making to Microsoft).

"Being a free platform has expanded the Android device install base, which in turn has driven growth in the number of third party multi-platform and mobile operator app stores," says ABI's research associate Lim Shiyang. "These conditions alone explain why Android is the new leader in the mobile application market."

The leader for reach, certainly. ABI estimates that there are now 2.4 Android smartphones in people's hands for every one iPhone, and sees the ratio expanding to 3:1 by 2016. It should be noted that we're only talking smartphones here, rather than tablets or non-cellular devices. Google said earlier in October that 190m Android devices have been activated so far, while Apple's last figure for iOS was 250m thanks to sales of iPad and iPod touch.

Activation and sales figures are good for corporate willy-waving, but app developers are digging deeper into the respective performances of iOS and Android. Reach is one important metric, but revenue potential is another. Apple's recent announcement that it has paid out $2.5bn to iOS app developers was calculated to highlight the fact that for paid apps, its platform is still more lucrative for paid apps.

ABI says that when it comes to mobile app downloads per user, iPhone still outguns Android two to one. "Apple's superior monetisation policies attracted good developers within its ranks, thus creating a better catalog of apps and customer experience," says the company's practice director of mobile services Dan Shey.

That's as maybe, but Google is clearly alive to the need to continue improving its Android Market store. Its Android boss Andy Rubin admitted at the recent AsiaD conference that Google has work to do. "We're a search company, we know how to find things, and while we haven't applied all of that logic to the Android Market just yet, we're actively doing it," he said.

Android is already a hugely appealing platform for app developers focusing on reach over revenues (or at least reach in order to drive revenues from advertising). An ever-increasing number of freemium social games are also making the leap from iOS, now that Google has its own in-app payments system.

Paid app developers and publishers continue to complain about handset fragmentation, poor discovery and piracy issues on Android, but many of them are knuckling down to support the platform anyway, recognising its potential.

With this in mind, ABI Research's figures shed less light on whether Apple or Google is winning in the smartphone market than they do on the fact that iOS and Android have fast become the two key platforms for many app developers. The focus now is as much on the battle between Microsoft and RIM to break out beyond their core existing developer communities to become a strong third horse in that race.